Saturday, March 1st.
The road from Banteay Chhmar to Samraong was, despite being under construction, quite a bit better than the road under construction from the previous day. And from Samraong to Siem Reap it was fine - apart from the occasional unannounced pothole - never get complacent.
Arriving in Siem Reap, the gateway town to Angkor Wat, we headed straight for our afternoon caffeine fix at the Blue Pumpkin (Lonely Planet), were we also had access to wifi, allowing us to look for a place to stay.
We kinda had decided to go for a place mentioned by others, but, with Tripadvisor, Google Maps and our GPS putting the place in totally different locations we had a helluva time finding it. By then I was getting a tad frustrated as Siem Reap has hundreds of hotels and which one do you stop at?
But then another search on Tripadvisor brought a Boutique B&B 'The Rose Apple' to my attention. I clicked through to their website (mind you, this is all parked for the 3rd time in front of the earlier mentioned coffee shop where we had access to wifi) and not only was the website in 3 languages (Nederlands - Francais - English) but one of the names was Tim Blondeel. Now that, as a Belgian, surely had my interested piqued.. So off we went to find it. Believe it or not, by missing a turn into their alley we actually also found the first place we had been looking for. I walked over to
The Rose Apple, met Tim and promptly was sold on the place. Only pity: we can only stay 2 nights as they are fully booked for the 3rd (and possibly 4th) night we want to stay here. But then we can move to that other place we looked for which is literally just around the corner.
Meanwhile The Rose Apple has been a lovely little oasis of friendliness. And we haven't even spent the night yet :)
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| Lovely common area at 'The Rose Apple' - yes that is a pool on the right. |
Sunday, March 2nd
(By Stephen until further notice)
Up early-ish, well early for us. First up, we purchased our three day temple pass from the very friendly and efficient ticket office. We were all set for a big day of temple visiting.
The first stop was Ta Prohm. When you see this temple, you immediately think Lara Croft, and indeed many scenes were filmed here. This was definitively our favourite temple of the day. Banyan trees growing in, around and over the ancient temple ruins. All in a beautiful forest setting with the occasional butterfly to make it all magical.
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| Ta Prohm. |
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| Ta Prohm. |
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| Victor Gate. |
Next up was the ancient city of Angkor Thom via the Victor Gate on the eastern wall. We spent many hours in this 3 km by 3 km walled city taking in numerous temples, including Baphuon, Royal Palace, Terrace of the Elephants, Leper King Terrace, Deads Gate and ultimately the mightily impressive Bayon. The Bayon contains 216 buddha faces, just like the ones Lara destroyed when she went to recover the first piece of the Triangle of Light.
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| Baphuon. |
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| Leper King Terrace. |
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| Smiling faces galore at the Bayon Temple. |
We left the walled city via the South Gate, an extremely impressive gate and bridge over the ceremonial moat. These guys knew how to make an entrance.
The third stop for the day was Phnom Bakheng, a great place to watch the sun set. Well, in fact not - or... depends what one thought one was going to see. Depending on what section of the LP one reads... 'Watch the sunset from the top of Phnom Bakheng' (1) or, the other section (which we kinda missed) "... stop by Phnom Bakheng before savouring the sunset at Angkor Wat" - don't ask. So we were at the top of Phnom Bakheng and spent an hour or so baking in the sun and the heat so we (together with a couple of hundred others) weren't going to leave until the sun had actually set.
(1) So we actually interpreted that as: you'll see the sunset over Angkor Wat. Nah. It was simply the sunset, over a lot of trees. Now, don't get me wrong, the sun was bright red so yes, still rather nice... it just was not what we'd expected.
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| Waiting for sunset at Phnom Bakheng. |
It was a long (10 hour), wonderful and quite exhausting day. But we were glad to be back at the hotel and into the shower. We were famished and the Rose Apple did not disappoint us with dinner.
Monday, March 3rd
Another big day of temple viewing. First up was Angkor Wat, since we had managed to miss it the first day. While hugely impressive, Angkor Wat is much more restored than any of the temples of the previous day. Not too sure "restored" is the right word, as many of the original stones and artwork have been replaced with new stones and reconstructed artwork. But the restoration work certainly leaves one with a great sense of the architecture of the original buildings, even if the heritage link is somewhat broken. We spent several hours wandering around taking it all in. It is the pride of Cambodia and it is easy to see why. Unlike the previous day, when we made the mistake of skipping lunch and just snacking, we took out time for proper lunch today, and were much happier for it. Temple viewing in the heat is hard work.
After lunch we headed north with the next stop at Preah Khan. Another site like Ta Prohm where the ancient stones intertwine with trees, giving the place an authentic and untouched feel. The stacked piles of ancient stones is a little overwhelming. And this complex is vast, it just keeps on going and going with lots of hidden chambers to discover. As you might tell, we enjoyed this temple.
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| Preah Khan. |
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| Preah Khan. |
But this was just a stopping point before the 25 km drive to Banteay Srei or the 'Citadel of Women'. A much smaller site but with the most amazing and intricate carvings. Our guide book claims this site was the "... instigator of the Khmer art movement". It certainly was beautiful. We headed back south in the direction of Angkor Wat to catch the sunset. Unfortunately we were running late and weren't going to make it. So instead we stopped at Pre Rup to catch the last rays for the day. Maybe tomorrow we will make it to Angkor Wat - at sunset that is.
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| Banteay Srei. |
Another long (9 hour) and enjoyable day of temples. After freshening up in the hotel, we ventured out to the tourist district of Siem Reap for a 'authentic' Khmer meal and a few non authentic margarita drinks.
Tuesday, March 4th
Yet another day of temples. But an easier day than the previous two days. We started at Bakong Temple. A much older temple, made of brick and in a slightly different style. We didn't stay too long before heading north to Phnom Bok. Much to our surprise we arrived at the foot of a 212 meter hill, with 630 steps to the top. It was touch and go if we would ascend given the lunchtime heat, but we decided to see if it would go. And it did. We were rewarded with lovely views of the surrounding basin and a fine 9th century temple. The local temple guard gave us a private tour, which was very nice. Last up was smallish Neak Pean temple.
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| Phnom Bok. |
In the late afternoon we headed to Angkor Wat for the sunset photo, which we had managed to miss the last two days. Well, that was a bit of a bust. And we did not get the classic shot. Oh well, will have to come back in the wet season I think.
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| Angkor Wat. |
By this time we were suffering from the heat and decided it was time to head back to the B&B for a swim in the pool.
Due to a last minute cancelation we were lucky to be able to stay at 'The Rose Apple' our 4 nights here. Very happy about that as we loved the place.
